With the development of wireless technology, wireless local area network (WLAN) products have developed from single autonomous wireless access points (AP) to access control systems consisting of wireless access controllers (WAC) and wireless access points. The access point or AP is an equipment for converting a wireless network to a wired network, and the wireless access controller or WAC is used for the configuration and management of wireless access points. Because there is a need to deploy a large number of wireless access points to provide a wireless access service to users, the problem of the configuration and maintenance of a large number of wireless access points needs to be solved, which makes it necessary to use wireless controllers to conduct centralized configuration and management for the wireless access points. The discovery of a wireless controller by a wireless access point is among the first problems to be solved.
The traditional discovery of a wireless controller by a wireless access point can be classified into two-layer network discovery and across-three-layer network discovery. A two-layer network is a network that is on the same network segment, such as the network segment 192.168.1/24, and what belongs to this network segment belongs to the same two-layer network. A network with communications across different network segments is called an across-three-layer network. A typical address resolution protocol (ARP) broadcast is broadcasted on a two-layer network, so an ARP broadcast cannot be transmitted across network segments.
On a two-layer network, an access point can easily discover a wireless controller. In an across-three-layer network discovery, the domain name of a wireless controller is obtained through a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server, then the domain name request of the wireless controller is sent to the domain name system (DNS) server of the company internal network, also called intranet, through the wireless access point, and the internet protocol (IP) address of the wireless controller is thus obtained, and eventually the discovery of a wireless controller by a wireless access point is achieved. Another approach for discovery of a wireless controller by a wireless access point in an across-three-layer network environment is, by configuring the Option 43 field of a DHCP server, the wireless access point obtains the IP address of the wireless controller through the Option 43 field, at the same time when the wireless access point obtains the network configuration.
However, in a complex company environment, deployment of a large number of wireless access points is often needed to achieve the wireless network coverage, and it may be impossible that all the wireless access points and the wireless controllers are on the same two-layer network. Therefore, it is almost impossible for a wireless access point to discover a wireless controller only through a discovery method of a two-layer network, and the discovery of a wireless controller by a wireless access point in an across-three-layer network becomes more common. However, currently, in an across-three-layer network environment, the discovery of a wireless controller by a wireless access point require either additional company internal DNS servers, or reconfiguration of the DHCP server, increasing the deployment and maintenance cost of the wireless network coverage for a company.
It should be noted that the above information is only used to assist in understanding the technical aspects of the present invention, and it does not represent that such information is prior art. The disclosed methods and systems are directed to solve one or more problems set forth above and other problems in the art.